


Spot The Difference

by rinnya



Series: Supersede [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes is Not the Winter Soldier, Canonical Character Death, Domestic Avengers, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Gen, How-to-be-a-person lists, M/M, Mistaken Identity, Non-Explicit Sex, Non-Graphic Violence, Non-binary character, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, They are different people, crack and humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-06-25 19:00:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15646968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinnya/pseuds/rinnya
Summary: Nikolai, The Winter Soldier, (Who is not Bucky Barnes, they are Very Different People), deals with life and evil robots, unfortunate Long Dead Doppelgangers, and Steve Rogers, the Boyfriend, (Who is also Captain America.)Identities were exhausting.Now with the events of AOU, the Accords, and maybe some reality bending mishaps.(Note: would be confusing if you do not read the first installment of the series, Almost but Not Quite).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, sorry for the wait! 1 Can't guarantee updates would be consistent and fast as last time, but thanks for the support!

Nikolai likes to think that they’re a wonderful, accommodating boyfriend, no matter what Natasha Romanova says, because she’s just jealous that they have an awesome blond boyfriend that also happens to be an Avenger and she doesn’t.

It wasn’t their fault they were proactive and taking initiative to start their checklist to become an actual person and she wasn’t. It wasn’t even like there were a shortage of hot blond Avengers in the team, Natasha was just terrible at completing her how-to-be-human to-do-list because she was lazy.

Nikolai told her so, smugly.

“Stop being an ass,” she scowls in reply, “not all of us can be the stay-at-home significant other to keep plants alive.”

“Your excuse is invalid,” Nikolai points out, “I come with you people on your missions. My plants are alive, my fish are alive, I have a carpet, a guest bag under the sink, and a couple of fake IDs.” 

Natasha snatches up the checklist on the table.

“This is a stupid list,” she huffs, “why would a normal person have fake IDs? How is getting lost in an Ikea a requirement? Why do i need to pet seven stray cats? Why seven specifically? What if I pet eight?”

“I don’t make the rules,” Nikolai shrugs.

“You literally made this list,” Natasha says.

“These are the rules of life,” Nikolai insists, “I merely put them on paper.”

“You listed fight a pigeon,” she deadpans.

“It’s New York,” Nikolai crosses their arms, “if you haven’t fought a pigeon, have you really lived here?”   
“I don’t even live in New York,” Natasha grouses, then, “I fought Clint?”

“Yeah, close enough,” Nikolai makes a check.

She takes the pen from them and checks next to ‘have a fake ID’, ‘have one friend’, ‘have a giant plush’, ‘cuddled with an Avenger’ and ‘met a celebrity’.

“That’s it?” Nikolai sounds disappointed, “I thought you had more life experience than me.”

“Half of these are stupid!” She says, “this says, color code all the gummy bears in a one-kilogram packet of gummy bears. Why would I do that? Why would anyone do that? Did you do that?”

“I was going to, but Steve ate half the packet, so it didn’t count,” Nikolai pouts, “I didn’t put a check for me there.”

“This one says, bake bread? Do I look like I’ve baked bread in my life?”

“It’s not my fault you’re boring,” Nikolai shrugs.

“Oh my god,” Natasha says, throwing her hands up, “I hate hanging out with you.”

“No you don’t,” Nikolai says serenely, “anyways, tag, you’re it.”

“I wasn’t even hiding from you this time! I’m on a mission!” She slams the table. A couple of patrons look over, but they’re speaking russian in Taiwan, so Nikolai doubts anyone understood them.

“Game rules, I don’t make them,” Nikolai says.

“You literally do,” Natasha points out.

“Tag,” Nikolai grins, then, “I have to go. I left Steve in a parking lot somewhere and I don’t think he speaks Chinese.”

\--   
“I heard you annoyed Natasha the other day,” Clint says in greeting, sliding into the seat across them in a Starbucks, “she wouldn’t shut up about it. Great job.”   
“Aww,” Nikolai says, “thanks, weirdo.”

“Where’s Steve?” Clint asks.

“Why do you people think I know where Steve is? I have my own life, I don’t keep tabs on him,” Nikolai huffs.

Clint continues staring. He blinks once, twice.

“He’s at the tower,” Nikolai grumbles, “Stark had something to show him.”

Clint grins, barely perceptible, then says, “great. Because we have important things to talk about.”

“What?” Nikolai narrows their eyes.

Suddenly Clint sits straight and his eyes widen seriously. “What month is it?” He asks.

“March,” Nikolai says.

“What day is it?” He asks.

“You have a phone, Barton,” Nikolai says, “seven.”

“What’s happening this Saturday?” Clint says again, eyes impossibly wider.

“Tenth? Nothing,” Nikolai says, wary, “what’s up with you? I’m not your personal calendar.”

Clint continues staring.

“Is it a holiday?” Nikolai pulls out their phone, “I’m Russian, so you can't hold me accountable if it’s some weird American holiday that I’m supposed to remem- oh my god.” 

Clint nods, a little.

“Oh my god,” Nikolai says. They turn their phone screen. Google’s logo has been redrawn into some tribute banner. It’s Bucky Barnes’ birthday.

“Oh my god,” Clint agrees.

“Oh my god,” Nikolai repeats, “fuck. Fuck!”

A scandalized woman turns around and gasps loudly in his direction. The barista looks up and wrinkles their nose.

“It’s my boyfriends’ best friend’s birthday this saturday,” Nikolai says to the woman and the barista. Starbucks is surprisingly empty on a 3pm on a weekday. Clint slams his head on the table.

“So? They sell gift cards on Amazon.” The woman turns her nose up. The barista stirs some coffee judgmentally.

“The best friend is dead,” Nikolai says in explanation.

“Please stop talking,” says Clint.

“I’m having a crisis,” Nikolai snaps at him.

“I suppose that could be a problem,” the woman says. She takes her cup.

“Get a really nice flower arrangement,” the barista says, handing the woman her change, “a quiet day out to the cemetery. Emotional support and all that.”

“Flowers, I could get flowers,” Nikolai thinks, “Clint, what flowers does B- uh, James like?”

“How would I know?” Clint says, exasperated, “I didn’t know James when he was alive!”

“Psh,” says Nikolai. They walk over and order a caramel macchiato and drop a hundred in the tip jar, and the barista’s jaw drops. They wordlessly drop the Grande cup back onto the stack and grab a Venti.

“You don’t like caramel,” Clint says.

“The boyfriend does,” Nikolai says, “hey, do you know where to get flowers in this place?”

“I don’t live in New York,” Clint says, the same time the barista says, “there’s a hipster place a street down, called Tea Petal - like tea leaf, but with a petal? They sell flower teas and, well, actual flowers.”

Nikolai stands there, considering. Then they drop another hundred into the tip jar.

The barista hands them their coffee with a slice of cake.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again!!
> 
> Quick question: should Pietro live?

On Friday, Nikolai stirs when Steve does, and wakes up to press Steve to the bed and push their face into Steve’s neck.

“I need to pee,” Steve says softly. He sounds like he’s trying hard not to cry. Nikolai rolls over.

Steve doesn’t come back to bed, and there’s the unmistakable sound of someone bawling in the bathroom mixed with the running of a tap, so Nikolai waits for 5 minutes. They hear Steve cry harder, so they clamber out of bed.

“Steve?” Nikolai taps on the door. “Honey, can I come in?”

“No,” Steve says, pauses, then, “Give me a hug.”

“You said I can’t come in,” Nikolai says softly.

Steve opens the door, eyes red. He shuffles out and buries his face in their chest. Nikolai wraps their arms around him and puts their head on his.

“It’s tomorrow,” Steve says, sniffling.

“Mhm,” Nikolai says, “you want to cry on the couch or you want to get some flowers and go to the cemetery?”

Steve doesn’t say anything for a long time. Then he whispers, “flowers?”

Nikolai thinks they might give the barista another hundred. HYDRA’s money is better put to good use, like giving minimum-wage workers good tips.

\--

On Saturday, Steve squeezes under Nikolai’s metal arm and cries softly into their sweater. 

In the morning, Nikolai makes enough scrambled eggs to feed a small country, and then Steve puts on a cap and a pair of sweatpants and sighs sadly. 

Nikolai puts their arm through his. They saunter down the street to Tea Petal. It’s incredibly hipster and someone has somehow managed to hang a bicycle and use it as a flower display, and they serve overpriced artisanal flower teas in mini flowerpots. There was a sign proudly proclaiming that vegan paper is used in flower wrapping. How paper couldn’t be vegan, Nikolai didn’t know - wasn’t paper just trees, anyways? Was there non vegan paper? What paper did they use?

“He likes sunflowers,” Steve says softly to the florist, while Nikolai was deliberating over the vegan-ness of paper.

“Your boyfriend?” The florist says, making a strange arrangement with sunflowers and weird looking flowers Nikolai has not seen before in his incredibly short life. Maybe Steve recognized them. 

“These aren’t for my,” Steve says, then pauses, and then turns to Nikolai, “do you want flowers? Do you like them?”

“Maybe not today, honey?” Nikolai says a little embarrassedly. It might be the florist’s bemused expression, or it might be the display of little Bucky Bears hanging off a… shelf? Made from a ladder, staring over with black beady eyes. It was just the tiniest bit unnerving.

“Oh,” Steve says, and follows Nikolai’s gaze.

“Oh, It’s Bucky Barnes birthday today,” the florist says happily, “Bucky Bears became popular again when captain america was brought back to life. We actually have wrapping paper with the vintage comic prints on it if you’d like?”

“The watercolor paper’s fine,” Steve says.

“How much for a bear?” Nikolai asks. Steve’s gaze snaps towards them sharply.

“Twenty dollars,” says the florist, “it’s, yes, a tad bit pricier than the other places for such a small bear, but half the proceeds go to charity! For the Veterans Association!“

Nikolai plucks a bear up. It imagines Bucky Barnes staring at them through judgemental beady bear eyes. “Yeah, I’ll get a bear,” they say. They feel Steve staring.

“Awesome,” says the florist, bundling up the flowers and tying a little bow out of twine.

They don’t go to the grave at Arlington. Nikolai leads them to little cemetery in Brooklyn, and they sit down on a little hill. 

“Arlington’s a little crowded,” Nikolai says, shrugging, “not sure you’d want to be there. it’s, ah, not like they have the actual body anyways. I, uh, figured that this is the place he’d be buried if, you know, it wasn’t Arlington. His parents are here, um, somewhere.”

Steve smiles a little, and bumps his head to theirs.

“Thanks, Nicky,” Steve murmurs, “why the bear?”

“It’s for you,” Nicky shrugs again, “so you have two things to remember Barnes by. The drawing on the wall and the bear.”

Steve smiles, wider.

“That’s creepy, stop it,” Nikolai pokes Steve’s cheek.

“Love you,” Steve says.

“Yeah, yeah, sap,” Nikolai mutters, but their heart is doing a weird thing.

The Bucky Bear stares unnervingly at them. “Yeah, okay,” Nikolai tells it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so tired, who wants to do something with me


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey again! I still haven't figured out what to do together. We can do some... uh... what's fun? I mean we are all on this site so I guess we have a common love for reading and writing??? We could start a book club???

“The avengers have to go to HYDRA stuff,” Steve tells Nikolai, sticking a leg out and jabbing them in the side with a toe. “Come on.”

“What?” Nikolai snaps, with no real heat, “what?”

“You’re an Avenger now,” Steve says, crossing his arms, “so you have to go to the briefings and do avenger admin stuff.”

“I knew there was an ulterior motive in making me an Avenger, i knew it,” Nikolai grumbled, “you wanna watch me suffer. Sit in briefings.”

“Now why would I want that, Kolya?” Steve says, sickly sweet, “now come on, you made me oversleep my alarm. We’re gonna be late.”

\--

“I didn’t know you have a buffet line in your meetings,” Nikolai says. 

Steve shrugs, “Tony likes to go all out.” Nikolai thinks, “I should start coming to these more often.”

Natasha barely looks up from where she’s trying to balance chicken on her plate. Clint waves, Tony waggles his eyebrows, and Bruce Banner looks startled. Thor looks up from the food he was stuffing into his mouth and grins at them.

“Nikolai, Bruce, Thor,” Steve introduces them. “Hello,” Bruce says, lifting an arm in a short wave. Nikolai nods, and Bruce looks ruffled, but there’s no doubt that Bruce, or rather the Hulk, could seriously injure, if not murder Nikolai if need be. Thor nods, and continues piling food onto his plate.

Maria Hill sits at the head of the table. She raises an eyebrow.

“Maria, this is Nikolai, or the winter soldier, Nicky, this is Maria,” Steve gestures.

“I see that,” Maria says calmly, “shall we get started?”

Nicky, Clint mouths to Tony.

The meeting is standard - HYDRA being evil, they stole something important, stop them. Except everyone looks concerned.

“They have my brother’s scepter,” Thor growls.

“Do we have blueprints of the sovokia base?” Steve says seriously.

“No,” Maria says, “but-”

“I have it,” Nikolai interrupts.

Natasha turns towards them accusingly, “where?” She demands.

“I memorized it,” Nikolai tells her smugly. They take the offered pen and paper and draws up a floor plan.   

“There’s a secret door here,” they draw an arrow to a wall, “probably has something evil, but I’m not supposed to know about it, because it’s a secret, but if HYDRA think they can keep things from me then they have another thing coming,” Nikolai says proudly, “but I was there like, 5 years ago so if they renovated anything then I have no clue what’s there now.”

They look up to see everyone staring. Steve has a particularly affectionate look on his face.

“What?” They say.

“You can make eyes later, Cap,” Tony leers, “We have actual HYDRA things to do.”

Steve shoots him a look.

\--

Clint screams. Nikolai winces when it bursts through the comms.

“What?” Nikolai demands. They break into a run to see Clint sprawled on the floor. “Some guy’s running around,” Clint says, breathless. He's clutching his leg.

“Thanks, genius,” Nikolai snarks. 

Somewhere far, Nikolai sees a blur run past, then knock Steve over. He rolls over and jumps up. “We have an enhanced in the field,” Steve says into his comm.

“Clint’s hit,” Natasha says. She comes to a stop by Nikolai, then says, “you know how this place works. Get in.”

“This place didn’t have force fields five years ago,” Nikolai grumbles, flinging themself into a cannon.

There is a series of explosions as the Iron Man suit flies overhead and fires a stream of bullets and missiles. HYDRA is screaming and ducking out of the way, and failing and being set on fire. “Drawbridge is down, people,” Tony says, flying over the force field as it explodes.

“I can get Barton to the jet,” says Thor, “Steve, you and Stark secure the scepter.”

“Nicky, eyes on our enhanced. Natasha, get to Banner. It’s time for a lullaby.” Steve says.

“A what?” Nikolai demands.

“Enhanced, Nikolai,” Steve shouts.

“Oh my god,” Nikolai says, the moment Natasha serenades the Hulk and turns him back into Bruce Banner.

Natasha winks at them.

“Oh my god this needs to go on the checklist,” Nikolai says.

“No!” Natasha shouts. Bruce shoots up, startled. “Fuck the list!” Natasha screams again.

“Should I change blond to brunet?” Nikolai shouts across the field. 

“What?” Bruce says.

“Can we not do this right now?” Steve voice comes through the comms, “where’s the new player?”

“You’re so hot in battle mode, honey,” Nikolai says.

“Eugh,” Natasha says. She flips and breaks someone’s neck. 

“We have a second enhanced, female, do not engage,” Steve says. There’s a little static, and he sounds breathless.

“Are you okay?” Nikolai demands, “Steve, what’s your position?”

“I got Strucker,” Steve says.

“Position, Rogers,” Nikolai barks, running.

“I got something bigger,” Tony says. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG ok I feel like this would make barely any sense if yall don't remember what happens in AOU.
> 
> http://transcripts.wikia.com/wiki/Avengers:_Age_of_Ultron 
> 
> This link is to the transcripts wiki! ;) (ngl, AOU is not one of the movies I like so I'll be skimming through quite a bit, so there might be some breaks in the plot.)
> 
> Also, should Pietro live???


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi I'm back!! I actually got distracted by life and this random new fic inspiration (oh no, she's at it again, she needs to update her old stuff first before dumping yet another trash pile on us) and yes i do.
> 
> It's like a much darker spinoff of this fic/my other one this is how it starts, where Steve never knew Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier approaches Steve not to apologize to him, but to like, you know, bash his head in. And then ultimately Does Not because he finds out that Captain America is actually Fucked Up (and i mean Fucked Up not in Hydra!Steve sense, but in the sense that the Winter Soldier is worried enough to stop trying to murder Rogers and actually put him on suicide watch.) I am,,, what,,, am I doing?
> 
> Anyways,, yes,,, this fluffy fic is 100% what i need right now

The flight home is quiet. Natasha bugs Bruce about something or another, voice low, and Steve goes to worry about HYDRA and whatever they were using the scepter for, and Nikolai decides to crawl onto Steve’s lap and read the plans that he’s going through.

“Probably won’t be the last we see of them,” Steve remarks.

“The enhanced? What powers did that girl have?” Nikolai asks him.

Across him, Tony visibly stiffens.

Steve notices it, too. “Tony,” Steve says.

“It’s nothing,” Tony shrugs.

Nikolai glares at Tony. Steve huffs and narrows his eyes, but doesn’t say anything more.

\--

Parties, Nikolai decides, are weird. Especially Avenger parties.

“Jane’s getting a Nobel prize,” Thor says proudly.

Nikolai briefly wonders who Jane is. They think for a moment then remember Jane Foster, a person of interest but never one of their targets. Hm.

Sam pulls Steve away to talk about something or another, frantically waving his hands and starting what seems to be an interpretive dance, or a seagull attack. Steve tugs Nikolai along and pulls them next to him. There are people who give them long looks, but the metal arm is in a sleeve and their hair is tied back and no one recognizes Nikolai as the winter soldier or puts two and two together. 

“This drink,” Thor says much later to an inebriated old man at a bar, “is not made for mortal men.” He pours a glass of something or other and hands it to Steve, who looks rather put out. There’s enough change in his posture and expression for Nikolai to know that Steve is uncomfortable, but Thor doesn’t pick up on it and hands Nikolai a glass too. 

“Steve,” Nikolai says softly.

Steve takes a breath and gulps the drink. Nikolai files it for future reference as Steve wanders off to be nosy, and Thor starts indulging that oddly familiar looking old man with the alcohol. Nikolai thinks they’d seen him before, maybe? 

Somewhere at the bar, Natasha is flirting with Bruce, who looks like he is slowly approaching the color of her hair. She flips her hair and gives him a saucy wink, then saunters off. Steve snickers. 

“You and Romanoff,” Steve says, “it’s cute.”

“I,” says Bruce. He stammers a bit, then falls silent.

“I've seen her flirt, up close. This ain't that. Look, as maybe the world's leading authority on "waiting too long", don't. You both deserve a win.” Steve winks at Bruce.

“Up close?” Bruce echoes, “what does that mean?”

“Yeah,” Nikolai says, “what the fuck does that mean?”

“I don’t-” says Bruce.

Steve turns around to wink at Nikolai.

“Steve! What did you and the widow do?” Nikolai demands, bounding next to him, leaving Bruce shocked by the bar.

“Nothing at all,” Steve says, grinning innocently. Steve is a little shit. 

“Come on boys, party’s upstairs,” Maria says. She leads them to a private room, where Clint is trying to pull on Thor’s hammer, with the man himself laughing. Bruce trails behind them.

Nikolai immediately hones in on Natasha.

“What did you do to my Steve?” They demand.

“Nothing,” Natasha narrows her eyes, “what did you think I did?” The same time Clint says, “are you talking about the time they kissed?”

Steve makes a low, desperate noise. Bruce squeaks. Natasha lets a long, slow grin spread across her face.

“Oh my god, you bitch,” Nikolai hisses. Natasha looks smug.

“It was before I even saw your face!” Steve whines.

“Yeah, but I’m better, right?” Nikolai demands.

“The best,” Steve says loyally.

Tony gets up to have a go at Thor’s fancy hammer, then Bruce, who all do nothing to even move it.

Then Steve tries, and the hammer shifts slightly. Nikolai wolf-whistles.

“Damn,” Natasha says. They glare at her.

“Widow?” asks Banner.

“Oh, no. That’s not a question I need answered,” she shrugs. 

“That’s because you know you’re not worthy,” Nikolai snarks at her.

“Oh you wanna go?” Natasha challenges, “show us what you got, then.”

NIkolai opens their mouth, thinks, closes it. They shake their head. Steve throws an arm around them, and Natasha looks distinctly bothered, bordering on apologetic.

Then the wall crashes in.

“What the fuck?” Nikolai says, hopping on the couch. Thor grabs the hammer from the table.

Some random robot who calls himself Ultron says some infuriating words, and it seems like only Stark and Banner know what’s going on, and then everyone smashes some robots and looks pissed and this is why Nikolai should have stayed at home and fed the fish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, Nikolai, same


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a short chapter!
> 
> PS remember Klaue from Black Panther? He makes an appearance in AOU too to provide Wakandan-stolen Vibranium to Ultron to make his robot army, in case you didn't remember (i didn't, i only found out when I was looking through the transcripts wiki). Saying this because he appears later in this chapter!

Nikolai comes to a conclusion of approximately 4 different things.

  1. There was an evil AI who wanted humanity’s extinction.
  2. The evil AI was working with the enhanced twins, Maximoff and Maximoff.
  3. The evil AI killed a good AI. That was sad.
  4. Steve in mission mode really worked for Nikolai. Really, really worked. If that wasn’t an incentive to start sitting in team briefings, they didn’t know what will be.



“We're the Avengers,” Tony says, “we can bust arms dealers all the live long day, but, that up there? That's...that's the end game. How were you guys planning on beating that?”

“Together,” Steve says. 

“We’ll lose,” Tony says.

“Then we’ll do that together, too,” Steve tells the team, standing tall and regal like he’s some sort of captain rallying his army. Hm, on second thought. Well either ways, there was no reason for Steve to look unfairly hot while making a ridiculous statement, but when has he never? Nikolai stares at Steve longsufferingly, and exchanges a pained glance with Tony. 

“Thor's right. Ultron's calling us out. And I'd like to find him before he's ready for us. The world's a big place. Let's start making it smaller.“

“That was so cheesy, Steve,” Nikolai says, once the tension in the room settled, “did you rehearse that or something? There’s no way it should sound exactly like a movie line.”

Steve actually looked embarrassed. “It’s just the way I talk.”

“You talk like you’re a lead in an action movie,” Nikolai says accusingly.

“Our lives are justifiably suitable for action movies,” Clint points out, “and Steve would be the lead, since he’s our leader. He’d probably even get a solo backstory movie from the 2nd world war.”

“No, because Steve’s bi,” Nikolai points out, “there’s no way Hollywood would want a bi male lead making out with the main villain.”

“You’re not the villain, you’re the antihero,” Sam says, “Ultron would be the villain in this case.”

“Are we seriously discussing this?” Steve demands.

“You better not start making out with Ultron,” Nikolai warns.

\--

“Captain America,” Ultron says, “god’s righteous man. Pretending you could live without a war. I can’t physically throw up in my mouth, but-”

Steve recoils. His eyes widen just a bit, but they catch it. Nikolai is pissed now. Who the fuck does this Ultron guy think he is, talking to Steve like that? Steve, their small, uhm, large, pure summer child, Steve, their little cinnamon roll?

“Shut the fuck up, bitch!” Nikolai snaps, stepping forth to push Steve behind them, “Who the fuck are you?”

Ultron pauses, then looks distinctly confused. “You were present when I introduced myself,” he says, a touch confused, “you are the Winter Soldier, was it?”

“Woah,” says boy Maximoff, “Winter Soldier? That’s him?”

“Winter Soldier? He doesn’t look like much,” Ulysses Klaue says, some random stupid dude who’s colluding with Ultron to provide him with vibranium he stole from Wakanda, nose wrinkling.

“Shut up, fuck you,” Nikolai points one gun at Klaue, keeping the other on Ultron, “you don’t get to talk to me, half rated thief. You and your botched job in Wakanda. Disgrace of entire mercenary community.”

Klaue looks pissed, and the Avengers, even Natasha, look woefully out of their depth. “Well, what would you have done?” Klaue demands, shifting his stance.

“Not gotten caught, for one,” Nikolai sniffs.

Klaue yells some obscenities, and raises his gun, and the league of iron robots comes storming in, and then it’s pretty much chaos everywhere.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god you guys, I'm sorry for the long-ass hiatus! I had school work to catch up on (I'm graduating???? In like two months???? I'm old????) and finals to complete (get me that GPA) and general writer's block and moping around and generally being unhealthy and unmotivated, but I'm back! Yes! I am!  
> This is a super short chapter as I try to get back to writing but I promise more is coming up soon!

Steve’s curled up.

Steve is curled up on the quinjet, pretending to be asleep with his eyes closed as Clint flies them over to “some place that’s secret and safe guys, I promise,” and Nikolai sits next to him.

The team is exhausted. Thor is silent, Bruce is asleep, Stark is not, and Natasha looks vaguely haunted. No one says anything about what girl Maximoff did to their minds.

She didn’t reach them in time. Nikolai is, they would say, lucky.

“Mind control’s not fun,” Nikolai offers.

“Same,” says Clint.  

Natasha, despite herself, let’s out a small snort. Steve huffs a little, and Thor offers Nikolai a small grin.

Nikolai runs fingers through Steve’s hair and lets him pretend to sleep.

Nikolai looks at Natasha, who stares back.

“You saw something,” they say to her, in Russian.

Natasha’s eyes flick to Steve, then to Bruce, then back to them. Clint is staring at his phone, no doubt listening in. “Yes,” she tells him.

“What was it?” Nikolai says.

Natasha stays silent,

“What was it,” Nikolai repeats. 

“Worst fears,” Natasha says, turning away, “or memories.”

Nikolai is sure Steve doesn’t understand a single lick of Russian, but the blond tightens his grip around their waist.

“The first time, in Sovokia,” Nikolai says, “Stark, he met the girl. What did he see?”

“I’m not a psychic,” Natasha mutters, low enough that Nikolai barely caught it, even though it was obviously not meant for him. She’s turned away now, and there hasn’t been a more openly vulnerable stance from Natasha. 

Nikolai sits back.

\--

They drop down to Clint’s fucking farm where he has a fucking wife and fucking children, and Nikolai thinks he’s a failure of an assassin because the entire mercenary community doesn’t know about Hawkeye’s entire fucking farm with an entire fucking family.

Clint has kids. They’re adorable.

Steve looks at them with a strange look, and avoids Nikolai’s eyes. 

Nikolai watches Steve be hot and chop wood like he’s venting all his frustrations on a block of non-sentient tree, and then he and Stark get into an argument and Nikolai just stays for the drama until Steve rips apart a goddamn wood block with his fucking hands and that’s unfairly hot.

Nikolai corners Steve in a shed.

“We’re not fucking in Clint’s farm,” Steve hisses.

“The wood thing was hot, you should do it more,” Nikolai purrs.

“I’ll break our coffee table with you once this is over but we’re not fucking in Clint’s farm,” Steve repeats. 

“Come on sugar,” Nikolai says, “let’s make a baby.”

Steve remains silent.

“Steve?” Nikolai says.

Steve shakes his head.

“We can’t make babies,” Nikolai points out, a little nervously, “neither of us have uteruses.”

Steve huffs a little, amused.

“Do you… want a baby?” Nikolai asks, brows furrowed. They think of Steve’s strange look when he met Clint’s children, surprise mixed with longing.

“No,” Steve says, face flushed, turning away, “I mean, I had wanted kids, you know, back then. But.”

“But?” Nikolai prompts.

“Peggy. With Peggy,” Steve says, “we. I. I would have asked her to marry me. And start a family. If.”

“Oh,” says Nikolai, “yeah.” Then, “We’d be terrible parents.” They thought for a moment, “Well, at least I’d be a terrible parent. You’ll be great.”

“Well I don’t want to be a great parent without you,” Steve blurts, then turns impossibly redder, and falls silent.

“I,”Nikolai starts, pauses, stops. Then they say, “well, we will talk about this later, but I’m going to suck your dick now.”

“Nicky!” Steve scolds, and his grip in their hair turns meaner.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, baby!

“Honestly,” Nikolai tells Natasha, “of all the times to elope. Honestly.”

She points a pistol in their direction sharply, but it’s without much threat. “You’re the one to talk about eloping,” she accuses.

“Excuse you,” they sniff, self-righteously, “who defected from the Red Room and eloped with Barton? I got dick after i got fired, not before.”

“I don’t have to talk to you about this,” Natasha narrows her eyes. She slams a car door into the gut of an… Ultron. One of them, at least.

Somewhere far away, Hulk yells. Nikolai is vaguely aware of an entire country being attacked by a giant swarm of metal robots. Steve’s shield comes flying towards them, and they snatch it out of the air and leap over to Natasha, and slam it into a robot.

Nikolai stares into the reflection of a car and aims and flings the shield. It hits something, and then something else, and Steve’s faint “thanks!” can be heard over the ruckus.

“Well I have to,” Nikolai says, “talk to you about it.”

“What, like you’re some relationship guru now?” Natasha huffs, “have one long term boyfriend and now you’re talking to me about settling down?”

“I never said settling,” Nikolai snaps, ripping the head of an Ultron with their metal hand, as Natasha leaps over them and dances around with pistols and kicks. it‘s like the Red Room all over again, the Black Widow and the Winter Soldier fighting in sync on the stage. 

Nikolai says, “I don’t care about Banner.”

She gets it. 

“Look,” Natasha says, “I won’t, okay, I have my reasons. I know where my priorities are.”

Nikolai starts, “Steve-”

Natasha jumps into the air, and Nikolai instinctively sticks an arm out for her leverage. She does an impressive backflip and decapitates two robots. “If it’s me or him, it’s me,” she says, then turns around to stare straight into Nikolai’s eyes coldly, “you’re not going to hold that against me.”

Nikolai swallows. “No, I’m not,” they tell her.

She cocks her head, raises an eyebrow. Then softens, and looks almost sympathetic. “Oh, Nikolai,” she says, “it’s not that way for you anymore, is it.”

“You don’t know a thing about me,” Nikolai tells her.

“Maybe,” she concedes, “but I know the Red Room.”

\--

The whole ordeal is over pretty soon - the Ultron thing, not the whole, negative repercussion thing. The negative repercussion thing is pretty bad.

The Maximoff twins are sitting in the quinjet, murmuring soft things to each other, mirroring the way Nikolai and Steve are over each other, but more sibling-ly. Natasha’s hugging her knees to her chest, looking out the window. Nikolai thinks of saying something to her, and her head is down and turned away, and they don’t. Steve buries his face into the crook of Nikolai’s neck and murmurs something soft and intelligible, that their supersoldier hearing doesn’t pick up. Nikolai runs fingers up and down his spine and stays silent.

“FRIDAY?” Tony Stark’s soft voice echoes in the quinjet. 

“Sir?” FRIDAY’s smooth, feminine voice comes through. It’s nothing like JARVIS. From the corner, The Vision looks up.

Stark murmurs something into an earpiece he’s wearing, sitting defeated in the cockpit, and next to him Clint fiddles with his hearing aid. There’s movement and then Steve’s staring at Clint too, with a weird expression on his face.

“I used to be deaf,” he says, “before all that happened.” 

“Yeah?” Nikolai says. They know that, of course. But Steve’s bringing it up now, for some reason that they still can’t comprehend, and the atmosphere in the quinjet shifts, and they’re sure Natasha and Wanda and Pietro are listening in now, even Stark, still softly talking.

“In my right ear,” Steve says, and Clint’s body has shifted enough to give him full view of Steve’s lips. He’s not subtle about it.

“Bucky used to stand on my left, because it was my good ear, and I’ve gotten used to him always being at my side, during back alley fights and on the war battlefield that I never really got used to having to watch my left flank, which kind of makes me pretty open, if any of the villains ever studied me enough,” Steve says, “and I guess that’s kind of what convinced me that you weren’t Bucky, I guess. When you stood on my left. I mean, I shouldn’t have expected it to be the same or anything, given that 70 whole years has passed and I was operating on a two year memory gap, even though I have an eidetic memory - sounds kind of stupid now that I say it out loud, but you were different. I mean it wasn’t the only thing that convinced me you weren’t Bucky, but, it helped me get there. Made me realize, you know, how different you actually were.” 

There was a pause, and Nikolai wondered if Steve was expecting a response. He didn’t get one. Nikolai didn’t know what kind of reaction warranted that revelation.

Steve laughed a little humorlessly. 

Maximoff twin female looked uneasy.

“I’ve always wondered what it would be like,” Steve lets his voice trail off meaningfully.

“Steve?” Nikolai says, dread settling in the pit of their stomach. What exactly had he seen in Maximoff’s vision?

“I think I need to be alone for a while, Nikolai,” Steve tells him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ermagawd  
> #pietrolives


	8. Chapter 8

Steve doesn’t come back.  

Nikolai, predictably, freaks the fuck out.

It takes all of Stark’s security team and Natasha to keep them from trashing the Avengers Tower Infirmary, and even then, it’s Maximoff’s glowing hands that do it.

“BITCH,” Nikolai roars, straining against the telekinetic bonds that are keeping them against the glass. They could shatter the wall if they aimed their elbow hard and fast and well enough, maybe, but it’s a 50 floor drop behind the concrete and steel and whatever Stark builds into his walls, and they have no doubt that Maximoff would drop them. 

“Calm down, Nikolai,” Natasha snaps. She actually looks offended, rubbing the spot on the arm, now bandaged, that they sent a pair of tweezers through. A terrified nurse prods at Maximoff brother, making sure his stitches weren’t torn. Nikolai would admit a grudging respect for him, kid took like 10 bullets after all, if they hadn’t had such a murderous rage against his twin sister.

“I didn’t give him a phobia of you or anything,” she protests hotly, sounding way too victim-ous for someone single-handedly holding back 200 pounds of pissed off supersoldier assassin, “I just took whatever fear he had and amplified it.”

“If the Captain had a pre-existing phobia of you anyways, that’s already a sign of an unhealthy relationship,” the boy snarks. Nikolai retracts their previous statement. They would murder the boy, too.

“Steve’s been gone for what, a day? Don’t need to go all ballistic, he can take care of himself,” Natasha says.

“I’m not worried about that,” Nikolai admits. The girl’s eyes go wide and soft, and even Natasha has on a look akin to pity. Nikolai hates it. 

“What,” Nikolai demands, “what the hell did he see?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Maximoff says, still looking at them like she actually cares.

“Like you cared about privacy while invading everyone’s fucking minds,” They hiss.

She shrugs, like it’s fair. It technically is, given that they were enemies then but allies now, but they don’t have to fucking like it.

\--

Steve continues to not come back. 

Nikolai continues to hate it.

One week later since the… incident, as they refuse to admit any more about a teenager overpowering them with a flick of her wrist, and Natasha is nursing a beer in the bar next to them, humming to herself. She hasn’t brought anything up about Steve so Nikolai doesn’t think about Banner, and it’s obviously a check-up on how they’re faring with the Great Steve Disappearance of the 21st Century, (not to be confused with the Great Steve Disappearance of the 20th Century), and Nikolai would personally come back from the dead to kick his ass in 70 years if that dumb blond got frozen in another icy lake.

Spoiler alert: they’re not faring great.

Vodka burns on the way down.

They hate Steve. They hate him.

What the fuck, Steve?

At least Bruce had the decency to have no choice in the matter. Steve gives Nikolai a peck on the lips then ups and disappears, all on his own accord. 

Fuck. Fuck.

The bartender shrieks. Oh, look at that. Their glass is in pieces.

Immediately after Natasha throws a large bill on the counter, downs her shot, and bundles them out into the open air, and then Nikolai is crying and they can’t stop, and then they’re in bed with Lion and Natasha’s drawing the curtains, and then it’s morning and Steve’s not here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't worry my friends there is an ANGST LIMIT for this fic. (Note how I said *this* fic, hehehehhe). Spot The Difference is meant to be one of my crack-ier and fluff-ier fics so there's drama but hopefully not too much sad stuff! I need more fun in my life. HAHA. I'm dispelling all my angsty writing via... other fics. bwhahahaha


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